Twelfth Night
by Little White Bird
Summary: Written in answer to a challenge to write femmeslash between Lady Anne from Richard III and Tamora from Titus Andronicus. However, there's a fair bit of Anne and Richard angst too, and rather more meta Shakespearean jollity from all over the canon.
1. Chapter 1

The feast had lasted four hours and was showing no sign of abating. Despite the snow outside, Anne was sweltering under her rich furs. She wondered how many people had been packed into the hall – it felt like more than a thousand. Behind her, heat from the new fireplace was so intense that she was afraid her gown might catch fire. The traditional hearth in the centre of the room had been lit too, and the stewards and pages who served them had sweat dripping from their faces into the food which, miraculously, was stone cold by the time it reached them.

They were packed so closely together that beside her she could feel her husband of two months growing ever more tense. He hated their social duties even more than she did. She supposed he felt self-conscious about his physical appearance, and indeed sitting at table with the charismatic King, his glamorous Queen, and all her similarly well-favoured relatives, he did look out of place. The only one at high table shorter than him was the seven-year-old Duke of York, who took great delight in teasing him about his deformities and cruelly mimicking him. He was too young to know better, of course, but Anne couldn't help wishing that his mother or someone would take him in hand.

She loved Richard just the way he was. She wouldn't have exchanged him for the tall, blond king or for a dozen Woodvilles, or for… Like many others, she could not avoid dwelling on the conspicuous absence of the other brother of the Richard and the king: George, Duke of Clarence. He usually made a fool of himself at feasts: drinking far too much, talking far too loudly, and bragging about great feats that he had never in fact achieved. She had never much liked him, but she did feel for him imprisoned all alone in another part of the Tower just because of some stupid prophecy. She wondered whether he could hear the noise of their celebrations.

The musicians struck up a dance tune. Edward suddenly arose and everyone bustled to stand up too. Richard hated dancing more than anything, though from the way he moved when he was fighting, Anne thought he could be quite good at it if he tried. Moved with love and pity for him, she put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He irritably brushed it off and glared at her.

It wasn't that he didn't love her. She knew he loved her far more than men of his station were supposed to love their wives. He had spoken so movingly of his love on the day he gave her his ring. Admittedly he had never spoken of it since, and was always so cold to her. But on that day there were tears in his eyes. Real tears. No-one could feign that kind of passion. And he had offered to kill himself for love of her! What if she had accepted his offer? No. It had to be that he loved her. She felt her own eyes filling. It was wrong of her to be angry when he was cold or cruel – he was only that way because he had suffered so much, and it was her job as his wife to relieve that suffering, to enable him to feel love and joy and all the other things that made life worthwhile.

"…your Grace?"

She had been so caught up in her own thoughts that she had not noticed Earl Rivers, the Queen's brother, addressing her.

"Pray Pardon, my Lord, I… am feeling a little faint from the heat. I did not hear thee."

"I asked if it would please thee to dance a measure with me, since thy husband…"

"No." Richard cut him off. "My wife said she is feeling faint. I will escort her back to her chamber."

Anne wondered what Rivers had been about to say. Judging from the beginnings of a sneer at the corner of his mouth, it was unlikely to have been anything pleasant. But in any case, she was relieved that it had given them an opportunity to escape. She wondered whether perhaps Richard had noticed her distress as she had his, and was concerned for her welfare. He gave her his hand to help her up. Sometimes, at least in public, he could be quite affectionate. Paying honour to the King and Queen, they made their apologies and left.

He followed her into her chamber.

"I assume you're not pregnant yet?"

"Not as far as I know. I mean I… Richard… I…"

"Well you'd better get undressed then. Go away."

The latter was addressed to her waiting gentlewomen, who, true to their calling, had been waiting for her to come to bed. They made their curtseys and left with obvious relief. They were both terrified of Richard.

He wanted an heir. And when he wanted something, he was quite single-minded about obtaining it. Anne liked to think that although he gave no sign of it, he also appreciated her loving touch. It had occurred to her that before their wedding, no-one had ever shown him physical affection. His mother made no secret of having hated him since before he was born, and by all accounts his nurse alternated between keeping a terrified distance from the ugly, precocious boy and beating him ruthlessly. With a reckless stab of sympathy she, now naked, enfolded him in her arms. At once he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down backwards onto the bed. As always, he remained fully clothed – the metal and leather of his doublet chafing painfully against her bare skin.

On the whole, she preferred sex with Richard to sex with her former husband, Prince Edward of Lancaster. Edward paid more attention to her pleasure, of course, but she always got the impression it was only because he needed to see himself as the kind of man who could give a woman a good time, not because he actually cared. Richard just took what he wanted and left. It seemed more honest, somehow. And so she told herself that honesty was why she preferred him. After all, it was absurd to think that she could actually enjoy the pain and humiliation, or find darkness and deformity more attractive than Edward's classical good looks.

As always, it was over very quickly. He rolled over onto his side with a grunt. Anne savoured the memory of feeling and watching him lose control for an instant. He was normally so in control – the thought that she had the power to make him briefly sacrifice it invariably made her aroused too. When they were together, it was seldom that she went to sleep unsatisfied.

However, it was equally seldom that she went to sleep for long. Richard began to twitch fretfully, and cry out with loud, frightened whimpers. Anne wished she knew what his nightmares were about, but she wouldn't ever dare ask, and the snatches of speech she caught were indecipherable.

She put her arms around him, half wanting to wake him, half fearful lest she did.

"Quiet, love. It is only a dream."

He gave a low moan, and half moved, half was manoeuvred until he was resting his head on her breasts. Tears were flowing down her cheeks, and yet she was in a sort of bliss. She gently stroked his back, running her hand down his strangely curved spine, and whispering soothing words.

Then he woke up.

"Get off me, woman!"

"You cried out, your Grace. I am your wife, I…"

"As your wife you have given me your share of your father's estates, you appear beside me in public, and you will bear my children. Those are your duties. Nothing more. Go away."

Anne took a deep breath. "Your Grace, on the day you gave me your ring, you said you loved me. You said…"

"I was lying. I am very good at that, though I must say it was easier than I expected. You are very stupid even by female standards and you disgust me. If you had any sense then I would disgust you too. Go away."

Anne searched for an excuse not to believe him, but couldn't find one. So she tried to find words for how she felt, but discovered that she wasn't really feeling anything.

"Don't just stand there and stare at me, woman. I said go away."

She considered protesting that it was her chamber and not his. It was the first time she had ever thought about trying to deny him something he wanted.

"You must allow me to get dressed, your Grace. You would not have your wife wandering the Tower naked."

He grunted in lieu of a reply, and turned his back to her.

Still no emotion. She was surprised at how calm she felt, how in control. She put on her smock and kirtle. She could have gone out like that, but it was cold, so she put her gown on too. She had not dressed herself for a while. It was not difficult, but the patterns of hooks, eyes and pins was unfamiliar, and she also found her hands were shaking a little. She did not say goodbye.

As on all feast nights, the royal apartments at the Tower were full. The sound of voices and music from downstairs indicated that the feast was still going strong, but of course she did not feel like returning there. She considered going to Richard's chamber, but he always locked it and she did not have a key. She could join her ladies, of course, but she wanted to be alone, and besides, she had no idea where they slept when in the Tower if not with her. She walked the corridors, the small problem of trying to find a place to sleep the night pushing from her mind the vast problem of her marriage.

From some of the doors she heard the muffled sounds of licit and illicit pleasure, from one only a loud snoring. Someone was chanting compline, not entirely in tune.

Then she came upon a small door that she remembered led not to anyone's sleeping chamber but to a small study containing nothing but a desk, a chair, and a couch. Perfect. She would sleep the night there (why was she so calm? How could she even contemplate sleeping? She pushed those questions to the back of her mind) and not think about her problems until the morning.

She pushed open the door. Someone had left a candle alight, though it had nearly burnt down. How careless. Devastating fires started that way. All the same she was grateful. She had no means of making light herself, and did not feel like finding her way in the dark.

By the candle there was a large book, and a vivid illustration on the right hand page caught her eye. A beautiful woman was standing on top of a cart with her hands and feet chained, and guarded by two Roman soldiers. She was wearing a golden crown, and her clothes were rich with barbarian splendour, but they were torn and dirty, and her face and body were contorted with agony. Beneath her, some more soldiers had tied up a young man with clothes similar to the woman's. One of them had slit his torso from top to bottom, and another was in the process of pulling out his entrails.

It was horrible. And fascinating. And the faces were so true to life! Not like a picture at all, more like looking at an image in a mirror, or at life itself. After many minutes, she sat down and turned from staring at the picture to examining the book itself. Surprisingly, the writing was in English. Opposite the picture it said:

"The Tragedie of TAMORA, Queen of the Goths, her Dreadful Revenge against TITUS ANDRONICUS, and her Horrible Downfall"

Keeping her finger in the place where the book was left open, she then looked at the cover:

"The Booke of Women, and their Dire Revenges against the Wicked Men who have done them Wrong, including the True Storie of the Valiant Hebrew Matron JUDITH and her foe HOLOFERNES; the Ancient Tragedie of MEDEA, and the Little Known Tale of TAMORA, Queene Gothick."

She turned back to look at the picture again. She had thought Tamora beautiful at first, but now she wasn't sure. Her nose and mouth were very big, and her skin and hair were dark. What she had at first interpreted as agony on her face now looked like savage anger. But if it wasn't beauty she saw, what was it that compelled her to keep looking, that filled her belly with longing?

She began to skim the text.

Tamora, it seems, was the Queen of the Goths, whoever they were. She had been captured in battle… Had she actually been fighting, Anne wondered. She had heard there was a Frenchwoman of her father's generation who led an army, and her former mother-in-law, the formidable Margaret of Anjou had certainly ridden at the head of one (though she had nothing to do with the fighting itself.) The idea intrigued her. She looked down at her own thin, pale arms – she could never imagine even holding a sword, let along swinging one, and as for actually hurting someone with it – the idea was impossible – horrible. But that didn't necessarily mean that no woman could do it. As a child she had begged her father to tell her everything he knew about la Pucelle. She fantasized about meeting her, about there being a woman who she could hug and play with as familiarly as her own waiting gentlewomen, but who was also strong enough to fight like a man.

But both la Pucelle and Tamora had been captured. 'la Pucelle' was burnt to death. Anne had always shuddered at the thought of that, but now she thought that Tamora's fate was even worse. She was forced to watch as her favourite son was tortured to death.

Anne turned the page. In the next picture, Tamora seemed rather happier. She was lying naked in a forest clearing, in the arms of a man with very dark brown skin. Anne coloured modestly at the sight of what they were doing, but she kept looking. She had seen a man with skin that dark once – he had come to court in the service of the Spanish ambassador, but one of her ladies had said he was from Africa.

It was not, however, on his dark limbs that her eyes rested. It was on Tamora, whose dusky breasts suddenly looked pale. She wondered what it would be like to lie against those breasts – so much fuller than hers, yet so much firmer than those of the larger women she had seen; to be kissed by those full, red lips, caressed by the strongest female hands she'd ever seen. She found that she was becoming aroused again, and, embarrassed, turned the page without bothering to read the text.

There were five people in the next picture. A man in Roman garb lay bleeding on the floor, and on top of him lay a pale woman, almost naked, and in an attitude of extreme terror. Two young men dressed like Tamora's son in the first picture were making as though to ravish her, and Tamora was pinning her shoulders down, and laughing.

Anne gave a little gasp of shock, and then to her utmost horror, heard a laugh from the dark corner of the room. She leapt up, but before she had time to flee, she heard a voice…

"It is a terrible thing to wrong a great Queen."


	2. Chapter 2

A figure stepped from the shadows. Confused by the tattered finery she wore, Anne thought at first it was Tamora herself, but after a moment, she was almost as surprised to recognise Margaret of Anjou. Without thinking, for she had never greeted her any other way, she dropped a curtsey and, collecting herself, said: "Your Grace. Pray pardon. You startled me."

"Do not mock me, child."

Anne would never have dared mock Margaret, who had always terrified her. Flustered, she tried to say something of that sort, but the words came out all wrong. Margaret laughed incredulously.

"I do believe you are trying to tell the truth. What are you doing here?"

Anne almost laughed. It wasn't even midnight, it was not particularly strange that she should be walking around the royal apartments in the Tower on the night of a great feast there. Margaret, on the other hand, had been banished from England on pain of death several years ago, and was commonly thought to be either dead or in France (which, the unamusing quipped, was much the same thing.) Anne had no idea how she got into the Tower, or what she thought she was doing there. However, what she said was:

"I… I couldn't sleep, and I did not want to rejoin the revelry."

"Revelry?"

"It is Twelfth Night, your Grace."

"Ah yes. Then I should put on a mask and dance."

Anne wondered whether perhaps Margaret had gone mad. Margaret must have noticed her puzzled expression.

"As the Italians do? No? Ah, you English, you are so parochial. You know nothing of the customs of other lands. It is a shame. I should have liked to disguise myself and go among my enemies unseen."

Anne did not think it was a shame at all. Although she had never liked Margaret, she had always admired her, and the thought of her humiliating herself like that was distressing.

"But is it truly Twelfth Night?" Margaret continued. "We must celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany here if we cannot do it there. Lights. We need lights!"

The candle was no more than a little pool of wax now, yet somehow the wick was still alight. Margaret used it to light a dozen more, and with great urgency filled every sconce in the little study.

Anne looked around. There was a bag on the little couch – Margaret's presumably – with all kinds of things spilling from it. A woman's coif, a perfume bottle, a man's glove, a thin surcoat that looked as though it had been worn in battle. Everything else was as she remembered it.

Suddenly Margaret spoke again, this time in the pious tone of a catechist. "What do we learn from the story of the Epiphany?"

"The story of the Magi, you mean?" Anne had no idea where this was leading

"Yes. What is a magus?"

"They were kings, were they not? Astrologers and kings?"

"A magus is one who practices magic."

"Yes."

"So what do we learn?"

"I… I do not know…"

"We learn that on this day the arts of the magician were reconciled to the Christian faith."

Margaret raised both of her arms high in the air and stretched them out wide. She started muttering something to herself.

Anne's heart was racing. The woman was clearly insane. She had to escape. She began to edge towards the door.

Margaret began to laugh hysterically. "Go, my child! Escape! But do not be afraid, for tonight everything is different. Tonight those of you who fear will be brave, those of us who weep will sing for joy!"

Anne made a dash for the door, flung it open and staggered into… what? She looked around in confusion. She was not in the dimly lit corridor from whence she came, but a great hall, even bigger than the one downstairs where the Twelfth Night festivities continued. It was brightly lit, and full of people she did not recognise, feasting and dancing and talking.

In terror she tried to get back through the doorway to the study, but Margaret was blocking it, standing there with bright eyes and a cruel smile.

"Let me back!"

But Margaret stepped forward and closed the door, and when Anne ran to open it, it didn't lead back to the study, but to another place she didn't recognise.

Anne's breathing was quick and shallow. She felt as though she was being suffocated. Was this what madness felt like? Had Richard's rejection turned her into a lunatic?

Margaret slapped her, hard, across the cheek.

"Pull yourself together, child. I have brought you here not to punish you, but at a gift because you recognised me for what I am – your queen. I know you liked what you saw in my book, though I must say I find your taste in men has become most peculiar since my son died. He is over there."

Anne looked and saw the African man from the picture.

"How… I mean… What is this place? Am I dreaming?"

"You will have to work it out for yourself. I have business of my own to attend to."

A man dressed in the fashion of Anne's early childhood had approached Margaret, and was kissing her hand. Margaret's smile was no longer cruel, but almost innocent. She looked ten years younger.

"My Lord of Suffolk…"

The two of them disappeared into the crowd.

Anne sat down and burst into tears.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you all right?"

A woman in strange garb had sat down beside her.

"If there is anything you would like to talk about… No?"

Anne continued weeping, and the woman was silent for a while.

"If you would like me to go away… Or I could just sit with you for a bit?"

Anne nodded.

"Perhaps you would like to go somewhere quieter? There is a balcony…"

Anne nodded again, and the woman helped her up and led her on to a quiet balcony.

"There. That's better, is it not?"

"Yes."

The woman smiled radiantly, as though ecstatic to hear Anne speak.

"Now, my dear. Do you want to tell me your name?"

"Anne."

"My name is Paulina."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"This may sound foolish, but what I is /I this place? How did I get here?"

"It is a feast in honour of Twelfth Night. The hosts are two Counts and Countesses from Illyria, but they have made their jester Lord of Misrule, and so he is in charge of the celebrations. As for how you got here, I do not know. I do not even know how I got here."

"And yet you are not afraid? How long have you been here?"

Paulina's brow creased. "So long that the phrase 'so long' does not have much meaning for me. Perhaps I have been here forever, or perhaps 'forever' has no meaning here. 'Time' is that man over there, the one with the black cloak. I'm not sure if it's anything else."

"Am I dead?"

"You don't look it. And yet I am sure that my husband died once, but he is still here, breathing and talking and laughing. I try not to think of it, as I am afraid he will disappear."

"I have a husband…" Anne did not mean to speak out loud. She was trying to remember where she came from, what had happened, and to link it to what was happening now. One or other of them must surely be a dream.

"Shall we try to find him?"

"No! I mean… he hates me."

Paulina nodded sympathetically. "Men can be bastards, can't they? But it's all right. Lots of people here hate some of the other guests, but it mostly seems to be arranged so that they don't bump into one another."

"But why do you even think he is here?"

"Oh, they usually are," said Paulina vaguely. "I wouldn't worry about it. Shall we go and get a drink?"

As they walked through the crowds, Anne picked up snatches of conversation.

"I never use murderers any more. If you want a job doing well, do it yourself…"

"Oh come on – the middle of the wood on Midsummer Night? You were asking for trouble."

"…typical fucking Capulet."

"More sack!"

The drinks were arranged on a long table: enormous tankards of ale, bottles of wine, horns full of mead. At the far end, two thin, pale women with strange eyes like those of a cat and… Anne did a double take, but she was right – they had wings like dragonflies – seemed to be squeezing nectar out of flowers.

There was also a table piled high with every kind of food, and being regularly replenished by a steady stream of servants. Among them Anne thought she recognised - surely not! John Morton, the Bishop of Ely, bringing fresh supplies of strangely unseasonable strawberries.

Anne found a cup of spiced wine and gulped it gratefully. She was thirsty, and also thought she could cope better if slightly in her cups. She began to eavesdrop again.

A tall man with an impressive beard, and robes covered in strange symbols was sitting at a table with three old hags. They seemed to be discussing some kind of unpleasant recipe:

"Personally I find toe of toad works better than toe of frog. You get a smoother consistency and quicker effect."

"Not so strong though, and besides, it doesn't rhyme."

"It alliterates, and there is assonance." Another bearded man walked up to them.

"Excuse me?" The newcomer spoke with a lilting Welsh accent

"Oh, you university educated wizards with your…"

"I said EXCUSE ME!" The conversation around them lulled for a moment as everyone turned to stare at him.

"Yes?" Said the robed man. "Can I help you at all?"

"I am come from a distant land to discuss the magical arts with other Initiated Ones."

"You're a wizard, are you?" Asked a hag, with little sign of interest.

"Oh yes," said the Welshman grandly. "At my birth the front of heaven was full of fiery shapes."

"How fascinating," said the robed man. "However, this is a private conversation, so if you don't mind…"

"I said AT MY BIRTH THE FRONT OF HEAVEN WAS FULL OF FIERY SHAPES!" He gestured grandly, and accidentally knocked off his pointy hat in the process. One of the hags suppressed a giggle.

"Hear me, or by Chesu I will do such things that…"

"_Dadogi_!" A young woman appeared, and led him off by the arm, berating him in Welsh.

Paulina and Anne turned to one another. Both were smiling. The wine was definitely doing its job. An officious looking fellow in black with a large and very shiny chain around his neck refilled her cup unsmilingly.

The two of them moved away from the drinks table because they were in the way, in the process almost tripping over two men who were sitting on the floor deep in conversation.

"Pray pardon," said Anne.

"Oh, it's quite all right," said the younger man, and then continued talking to his friend.

"…So then he married my mother! Would you believe it? A month after the funeral and he married her. Are you sure I'm not boring you?"

"God no," said the older man. "I can't get enough of these sad stories of the death of kings."

Then Anne caught a glimpse of the African man again, and a thought struck her.

"Paulina, is there someone called Tamora here?"

A passer-by with a strong Scottish accent said, "Tamora and Tamora and Tamora and Tamora," then giggled, hiccupped and fell over. A tall woman in dark highland dress rolled her eyes at Paulina and Anne.

"Sorry about that. Can't take him anywhere."

"PRAY SILENCE!"

Everyone turned to look at the five people on the dais. Four of them were richly clothed – a tall, dark woman, a golden haired girl and a golden haired boy who looked alike save for their different clothes, and brown-haired man. The fifth was dressed in a fool's motley, but over it he wore a richly jewelled cloak.

"That's the one I told you about," whispered Paulina. "Feste, the Lord of Misrule."

Anne felt immediately drawn to him, though he was not particularly handsome. He was middle aged, with a badly receding hairline, though the growth at the back was luxuriant enough. His beard and moustache were tiny, and very neatly trimmed.

"Friends," he said. "It is almost midnight, and our feast is drawing to a close."

"Shame, shame!" Cried an enormously fat man.

"I would like to speak a word." It was the man who had been talking to the hags, and the crowd parted for him as he made his way to the dais.

"My Lord Prospero. Of course," said Feste, and sat down between the tall dark woman and the golden-haired boy.

"Once, there was a writer," said Prospero, without further introduction. "Not a particularly good writer, at first. But he practised, and he prayed to every god he could name and several he couldn't, and before he was old, he learnt not as lesser poets do, to master language, but to ride it as a mermaid rides the ocean and trust it to carry him to places beyond mortal imagination. When he died, he went to heaven and feasted at God's own table.

All gifts come from God, of course, so I don't suppose that He Himself can have admired the writer as such, but it seems that a few of the lesser angels had been in the habit of attending his plays either disguised as mortals or perched invisibly on the side of the stage, where they got a good view. And on his arrival in heaven, they got together and persuaded God to offer to grant the writer any boon he desired.

God agreed, and the writer went off for a bit of a think. In the end, what he said was this:

"My Lord, thou hast given me every thing I desire, and I know thou wilt vouchsafe the same to all men, so I am not afraid for those I loved on earth. (Though in truth I wish I had been here when Kit Marlowe arrived, for it would have pleased me much to see the look upon his face.) My one sadness is this. That the men and women and those that were neither who populated my plays and who kept me company throughout the darkest times of my life, are not here with me. That though they have helped me, and, I dare to venture, many others, to understand what it is to be human, they have never felt it themselves. Lord, I ask that they be bodied forth to share this joy."

Well, God appeared to dither a bit, though what with omniscience and all that I'm sure it was just for show. And then he said this:

"My child, it is not written in the book of truth that they should come here, and therefore it cannot be so. However, I shall make them their own place, which is neither heaven nor earth, hell nor purgatory, and thou shalt be free to come and go between here and there."

And so it was.

And that is why we are here this day."

There was a silence: an awed silence on behalf of some, a confused one on behalf of most. Then the fat man started applauding enthusiastically, and everyone else joined in.

Anne tried to make sense of it, and when she could not, tried to remember it all instead so she could make sense of it at her leisure.

Prospero stepped down, and Feste rose again.

"Thank you, my friend. And now I hear the chimes at midnight. It is time for our final rite. It is time to dance!"

The crowd parted to the sides of the room, leaving a large space in the middle. A young woman stepped up onto the dais, carrying what looked like two buckets. She was dressed more strangely than anyone, though very few were wearing normal clothes. She wore a sort of sleeveless shift that was shaped to fit her body, pale green in colour, and painted with strange flowers, like roses – real roses from the garden, not pictures of roses – but with many more petals. Anne thought it enchantingly beautiful.

"Number one," said the girl. "Marc Antony and Katherina."

A Roman soldier stepped into the space, and an angry-looking woman wearing a red dress was pushed in to join him. He offered his hand as though to dance, but she slapped his face. The musicians struck up a stately measure.

"Number two. Owen Glendower and King Lear."

The Welshman took the hand of a very elderly man crowned with flowers, and the two began solemnly to dance.

"Number three. Lysander and Helena."

"For God's sake not AGAIN!" A short, dark-haired woman shouted. "I protest. It isn't FAIR."

The girl on the dais smiled. "Don't worry, Hermia, it's a different Helena."

Lysander, and the 'different Helena' took their places behind Glendower and Lear. They were both accomplished dancers, performing the slow steps with agility and in perfect unison.

And so it went on. Couple by couple, old and young, rich and poor, men dancing sometimes with men, women with women, they joined the dance, circling the floor to a graceful bassadanza.

And then: "Number forty-five. Tamora and Lady Anne!"

Anne was gripped with panic. She didn't know the dance. She hadn't danced at all since her first husband had died!

"Go on then!" Paulina was nudging her forward.

Tamora was there, just like in the picture – as tall as a man, glossy black hair falling to her strong thighs – and scanning the room for her partner. Anne stepped shyly forward. Tamora brazenly looked her up and down, and with a delighted smile came towards her, holding out both her hands.

Confidence suddenly soaring, Anne went to her, and they began to dance. It was easy! Her mind didn't know the steps, but her legs did, and as the beat became faster, she had no trouble keeping up, but longed for it to be faster still. More and more couples joined behind them. Mostly she looked straight ahead, but she could always sense Tamora's body beside her, feel her strong hand holding hers, and sometimes sense those dark barbarian eyes lasciviously taking in her body. The sensation was delicious.

Faster and faster they went, until she realised that the beat had imperceptibly changed and rather than a courtly bassadanza, it was a merry farandol, like the villagers had danced when Anne was a little girl at Middleham. Then suddenly she wasn't moving any more, but standing with Tamora's arms wrapped around her as the others swirled around them.

Anne had never truly been kissed before. Edward occasionally waggled his tongue round in her mouth, Richard never bothered. She had had no other lovers. Tamora kissed as savagely as Richard fucked, but with passion rather than his horrible detachment. With Richard, Anne always felt she was being punished for having a body, with Tamora, she felt her body being adored to the point of devouring. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be consumed in bliss.

The music faded, and in the far distance there was a voice that died away even as it began. "Our revels now are ended…"

The strong arms that held her did not fade, but when she opened her eyes, Tamora was gone.

"Margaret!"

"Anne."

She firmly disentangled herself from the older woman's grasp. She did not allow her confused anger and sorrow to show in her voice:

"It was a trick, then?"

"Of a sort. Not in the way that you mean."

"But Tamora wasn't real?"

"If we are to believe Prospero, none of us are real."

It was almost dawn. The noise from the great hall had ceased, but somewhere a small group of men were singing drunken catches. Soon Richard would rise – he was ascetic in his habits and never slept late. And for the first time she would look upon his face without illusion.

"My life is over," she said, not meaning to speak out loud, but not caring that she did.

"Mine was over many years ago," said Margaret. "But still I live. Come."

They went to the window, and silently watched the sun rise.


End file.
